E Niwas on Raveena Tandon: She transformed herself for Shool because she wanted to do the film - Exclusive

It's Raveena Tandon's birthday today and that's the perfect reason to speak to film industry veterans who have worked with her. Filmmaker E Niwas, who directed the subliminal Shool with Raveena and Manoj Bajpayee in the leads, spoke to ETime to recall all that makes Raveena special. In his own words.

"Ram Gopal Varma wasn't sure Raveena was the right choice for Shool"

Working with Raveena was an amazing experience because she was part of my debut film. Before Shool we had seen her in only commercial films. Shool was a realistic film. Our producer Ramu ji (Ram Gopal Varma) was not sure whether Raveena would fit in this realistic film because she had a different image. We had discussed the character with Raveena, so, she went to Rakesh Shreshtha and did a photoshoot as a middle-class woman with sari and hair tied back. Ramu ji couldn’t recognize her when he saw her in that avatar. That’s how she transformed because she wanted to do Shool.

Initially, our choice for that role was Juhi Chawla. But Juhi met with an accident and had to take a break. Then Raveena came into the picture. Raveena will always have a special place in my life and we are still close friends.


"A crowd of 80000 came to watch Raveena in Bihar"

We were shooting at a railway station on the first day of shoot. There was a minimum of 70,000-80,000 crowd. It was crazy. Everyone was raving about her. Eventually, Manoj Bajpayee had to intervene and talk to the locals to make sure that the shoot went smooth. It was not an easy shoot. We were the first ones to shoot in Motihari and Betiya regions of Bihar.

We shot there for fifteen days out of those Raveena was there for five days. Mostly, we shot in the exteriors. We shot the interiors in Hyderabad. The exterior shoot was taxing with so much crowd gathering. Raveena was a bigger star than Manoj at that time. Now she is back with KGF and Aranyak and she is rocking.